


If only I could be Stronger

by thefrenchmistake



Category: Locke & Key (TV)
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Siblings, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:53:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24238357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefrenchmistake/pseuds/thefrenchmistake
Summary: Since his dad died, Tyler feels the weight of the whole world on his shoulders and knows he doesn’t have the strength to hold it.
Relationships: Bode Locke & Kinsey Locke, Bode Locke & Kinsey Locke & Tyler Locke, Kinsey Locke & Tyler Locke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	If only I could be Stronger

Since his dad died, Tyler feels the weight of the whole world on his shoulders and knows he doesn’t have the strength to hold it. The crushing responsibility of protecting his siblings, his mother, the fragile equilibrium they managed to find in the time between dad’s death and their moving out, is far too much. It doesn’t do well for the fire in his blood and the anger staining his vision and churning at his guts all the time.

Tyler feels like a beast in cage, and the only way he knows how to escape this helplessness is through pain and bones cracking under his fists.

Getting out of the hockey match, he sees apprehension on Jackie’s face, and when he turns around the creep is grabbing his sister’s arm; Tyler sees red.

He just loses it right here and there (because his hands were on Kinsey and his words cut deep into his insecurity, his inability to protect his _family_ ) and it kills him when he realizes it’s not for his sister, not really, but more for himself that he throws the first punch.

She asked him to back off, she simply wanted to go home. After what they lived, none of them needed to witness any more bloodshed.

But his ego wouldn’t let him, and that’s both infuriating and terrifying to realize.

Particularly when he finds himself in Kinsey’s head and stares at himself through her eyes.

“I didn’t hit him that hard,” he says tentatively.

She doesn’t buy it, and it’s the simplicity, the honesty of her answer that hurts more than the words themselves.

“In my head you did.”

It has always been Kinsey and him, for as long as he can remember.

He doesn’t know when that changed (probably with a bullet, blood and a dark coffin enhancing his refusal to deal with grief).

When the setting changes to plastic sheets shuffling in a soft rustle, dread stuffs the air so suddenly he feels like choking on it. Steps thump all around them, heavy and slow and threatening.

There is something ugly and terrifying that grows within him at the sight of his sister muffling their brother’s mouth, of the tears in her cheeks and the tremors he can see shake her body even as she tries to be strong.

Sam’s voice echoes once more and he wants to punch a wall.

Surging out of her head, Tyler has never felt so helpless.

That night, he can’t sleep.

All he sees is Kinsey, wide eyes filled with tears, clutching her hand on their brother’s mouth like it might save their lives (it did).

All he can think about is what Sam would’ve done to them if his mother hadn’t smashed his head in; how close he had come to losing even more of his family (everything, he wouldn’t have survived if his siblings hadn’t).

They had never talked about it.

It had never exactly occurred to him before, that she might have been so close to…

He remembers, of course, but in a quiet, distant way. Because there was his father, bleeding on the floor (although he was already dead) and his mother with a bullet in her leg and blood on her hands.

After, there had been Kinsey and Bode, safe and sound as he held them too tight, but he had never…

His attention had been so focused on his father and his mother and then his goddamn guilt, it hadn’t really snuck into his mind, the possibility that Sam might have done more.

That he had gone after Kinsey especially (he can still hear him singing her name behind the plastic).

She had given her statement separate from them and only now does he realize it was to keep them safe.

It makes him want to throw up.

The mind has a funny way of shaping reality according not to facts, but to hypotheses, to what ifs. The worst comes to mind immediately, and Tyler can’t think of the event anymore without thinking about what could’ve happened, hadn’t his mom surged up.

“Hey.”

She startles, breath suddenly caught in her throat and hand clutched on her mug.

“Fucking…”

“Sorry, I’m sorry,” Tyler chuckles,but it’s rough and a little pitiful, if he is honest. He comes around the counter, pouring himself a coffee as well while she curiously watches his movements.

“Mom ?”

Kinsey shrugs, taking a sip. He does the same. It burns his tongue.

“Out. Probably at the hardware store.”

“Bode ?”

“I don’t know, probably wandering around the house again or doing whatever he does in his room.”

“We don’t wanna know what that is,” he sighs, sitting down on a stool while she stays on her feet, leaning against the sink.

“Nope,” she pops, taking another sip.

There are shadows under her eyes, still, but the strand of pink in her hair creates a sharp contrast with the black on her pale skin. She seems tired. He is tired, too, has been since he saw what was in her goddamn mind and couldn’t get it out of his.

And not for the first time, Tyler realizes how brave his sister is. How he doesn’t hold a candle to her, because all he seems to do nowadays is break things when she tries to mend them, and get stuck in his own head, screwing up even worse if he tries to get out.

But Kinsey, she tries and tries and never stops trying, despite him blowing her off at school or at home. She’s always fierce and confident, certain of herself and ready to stand up for their family, which is far from his case.

“You slept well ?”

She gives him a look.

He feels pretty stupid.

“I feel like I always say the wrong thing,” Tyler sighs, burying his face in his hands.

“Kind of, yeah,” she chuckles, but it’s not mean. “But it’s sweet. It means you’re trying. That’s more than a lot of people can say, Ty. As long as you try, I’m good with whatever dumb shit you say.”

“How magnanimous of you.”

“Oooh, a big word, you sure you know what it means ?”

“Fuck you.”

“You finally opened a book ? I’m proud.”

He shakes his head, finishes his coffee when he realizes she’s cleaned her own cup during their discussion, and then they’re getting ready to go outside. He has plans with Jackie and she with whatever the stupid name of her _boyfriend_ or whatever is, so they get their stuff and come the door.

She is ahead of him, and he watches for a second, her ponytail bouncing behind her, her breath foaming in the cold morning hair, how her shape, encased in a blue jacket, stands out against the white of the snow that fell during the night. He jogs after her.

“Hey,” he gulps, hand reaching for her shoulder.

She turns around, the pink strand in her hair making him smile a bit despite the stupid apprehension in his heart.

“You know I love you, right ?”

Kinsey rolls her eyes so hard he thinks she might hurt herself, before she replies:

“Of course I know, dumbass.”

“And…I like the pink.”

“Really ?” She goads, an eyebrow crooked.

He shrugs.

“I mean, it seems like you’re going back to your old self. I like that.”

His sister beams at him, brightening the entire snowy morning.

“Me too.”

Tyler doesn’t have time to feel the stupidity of his actions of the past days, because before he knows it he’s tied to a chair and his mom is screaming again and he has to face his worst fear: his family being killed as he remains helpless.

The same thing that coiled in his chest and curled around his heart like a snake when he saw Kinsey’s memory squeezes harder, harder, hard enough that he feels like he can’t breathe, can’t think.

He just knows his siblings are out there with a gun drawn on them by a psychopath, the same one that murdered his father in cold blood right in front of them.

There is no way in Hell he’s letting Sam hurt Kinsey. He thinks about Bode, of course, but he knows his sister will never let anything happen to him, that she’ll take the bullet if needed.

He won’t let that happen.

He can’t let that happen.

When the two shots echo, he panics.

Then shit goes down, as it always does, and this time Kinsey is not by his side and he can’t help but think that maybe Bode and her are fucking corpses on the forest soil, maybe they’re bleeding out, maybe, maybe….

There is a small, tiny part of him that is relieved they’re not here when Dot appears, but still, he can’t not feel their absence.

When the police sirens echo in the night, he’s still adrenaline ridden, as his mother probably is, and they’re surging out before the cars are even at a stop.

Kinsey and Bode step out of one of them, and Tyler is running to his sister, holding her too tight and too close and hard enough to hurt her very bones, but she squeezes him back just as hard, whispering things he can’t understand in his neck, and it’s only then he realizes that he’s whispering things as well between his tears. He brings in their mother and his little brother, finally breathing right for what feels like the first time since his father died.

When they eventually pull away, their mother drags Bode inside, to talk or clean up, Tyler doesn’t know. Bode sends him an annoyed, exasperated look though, so he guesses he’s alright.

His sister, on the other hand, trembles slightly under his touch and he stares at her.

“Did he hurt you ? Did he touch you ?” He presses, hands roaming her body to check if there is any blood, any bruise, anything.

Kinsey shakes her head, putting her hands on his forearms to calm him down, and her lips stretch into something that resembles a grimace.

“I’m ok.”

At those words, Tyler collapses against her, wrapping her in his arms (he doesn’t want to let go again, because she’s warm and here and she isn’t bleeding).

“Fuck, fuck you’re ok, you’re ok. I didn’t know, we heard the gunshots, and….”

“Shh, Ty, I’m ok.”

Yeah.

They’re ok.

They’re all safe.

They all get nightmares, from time to time.

But while Tyler’s are more abstract, dealing with helplessness and guilt, Kinsey’s are…

Well.

It goes further than reality. Sam pushes the plastic open after shooting her mother, ripping Bode from her and putting a bullet in his head before the inevitable “Kinsey, your daddy couldn’t help, but maybe you can” starts again, echoing in the empty room even when she wakes up soaked in sweat and realizes the psycho is in prison-now dead.

She simply can’t bear waking up alone sometimes.

And this night, probably the second worst of her life, because at least this time nobody died in the end, she can’t lay in her bed and look at her ceiling.

She feels Sam’s presence in her room, sees him in every shadow, hears his threats and his madness in the soft sounds the house echoes.

There is a part of her screaming to go check the windows for the third time, because if he busted one, he could bust others, he could go into Tyler’s room and choke him with his own clothes, he could go to Bode’s room and shoot him in the head, he could go to her mother’s and smash a hammer down on her face.

There is bile in her throat and honest terror when she puts her feet on the floor, getting up and getting out without a glance at the window (it’s better not to look, or she would see a reflection of her fears and not reality).

Like she did as a child, she walks down the hallway and quietly opens Tyler’s door.

She appears in the doorway like an angel, if angels cursed too much and cried under their sheets when they think no one can hear them. Her voice wavers when she speaks.

“Can I come in ?”

Tyler opens the blankets for her without a word, the sight of her long awkward limbs and pink strands of hair getting in his bed next to him easing the weight on his chest a bit.

He can almost feel a smile on his lips; not quite.

It’s like when they were children, he thinks when she lays on her side to watch him but he stares at the ceiling (he is far less honest than her, far less blunt), when they snuck into the other’s room because they were scared, restless, or they simply wanted to brave their parents’ rules.

Except now she seems exhausted and he can’t remember what her laughter sounds like; except now she paints her hair and her nails but there doesn’t seem to be any heart in it (it’s painful to see something that brought her so much joy be reduced to a facade, a mean to keep up the charade and maintain the illusion).

“Nightmare ?”

She closes her eyes and sighs, her breath brushing his cheek.

“Yeah. They keep multiplying since…”

“Me too.”

“Do you feel better, now that he’s dead ?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither. I thought…” she closes her eyes, gulps. “I thought he killed you.”

“What ? What are you…”

“When he came out, wearing your clothes, and… And he kept saying… I don’t know, I thought…”

“I’m here.”

The words settle in the silence that follows, reassuring in their absolute certainty.

“Do you think we should ?”

“See a therapist ?” He guesses, remembering the discussion with their mother the same day. 

“Yeah.”

Tyler sighs deeply, unsure of what to say, so he answers honestly.

“I think we probably need it. I sure as hell don’t want to.”

“Me neither,” she mutters.

A few seconds later, he turns his head towards her with a wry smile.

She has been the one taking care of him since their father died. Maybe it’s time he repays the favor.

“We probably should, uh ?”

She smirks back.

“Yeah. I talked to Bode, he won’t go without us.”

“Then I guess we have to call doctor whatever.”

“In the morning though.”

“Yeah, in the morning.”

Until then, he smiles again, and stretches his arm to offer his hand. Kinsey removes hers from under her cheek and places it in his, fingers squeezing his. All that matters is that they stick together from now on, as family does.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading ! I kinda fell in love with their relationship, I wish we could've seen a bit more bonding, especially after Tyler's trip in Kinsey's memories. That deserved a discussion.   
> As always, constructive criticism and comments are appreciated and make my day,   
> See you soon !


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